Missed Opportunities for Inquiry: Dresden
Maxine Greene, in Teaching: The Question of Personal Reality (1978) - challenges teachers to recollect and remember why they got into teaching in the first place - assuming it was for more than the then (and now) focus on efficiency and bureaucracy (but I wonder if it holds true for those that enter for coaching purposes, as is often the case in my social studies experience). Pulling together memories from the past to once more feel the motivation and passion to teach can provide helpful guidance as they recall the personal reality of their classrooms - developing a self awareness that serves their ability to challenge the status quo.See, it's possible that, after starting to teach, one may forget the original drive and overall purpose of school and instead focus on running an efficient classroom that is orderly and neat, at the expense of student learning. Teachers become consumed by the observed limits and bureaucratic demands of schooling. Its possible to teaching within this context - its possible to meet external expectations while engage students in meaningful and authentic learning, but teachers cannot if they do not first have the an awareness of their reality in the classroom. I think too, that this can help those who entered teaching for - dubious/questionable/extra curricular - reasons, as you can learn that education is more than coaching. Reflecting back and seeing where you've come from to break that mold, if if it is addressed early enough in teacher preparation? Maybe?
Anyway - Greene begins her paper with three views of the teaching reality - Dewey's view of the learning community of school, Smiths idea of teaching as situational (agent, situation and control/lack of control) and Buber's - which I find useful thinking about now as a situation "that has never been before and will never come again." Life -and thereby teaching- is a world of reflected on lived experience. Teachers have to be self aware and self actualized - engaging in self discovery. Teachers have to awake and be aware - an awareness that begins in their past. Greene challenges teachers who have become complacent in their roles - creatures of habit mechanical in their operations looking to manage efficiently the classroom instead of recalling their humanity and purpose as teachers - deeper than content and tests. Something else - I once had a colleague who argued teachers are born, not developed - there are elements that are inherent in some that are more amenable to teaching than others. Not sure where I stand on this anymore - beyond that I do believe education can help us learn to be good teachers, and change a mind or two along the way about why teaching is important. Still starts with a self examination.
There is a need to understand the self as one of continuous formation (Dewey). Making a choice of action - with intent and purpose, not simply becuase. Intentionality is important - if teachers take this action they are no longer complacent - and this is hard. Its a hard choice to be aware and challenge the reality as they have found it. In her own words at the end of the article she states her want:
"I want to see teachers become challengers and take the initiative upon themselves. As they do so, as we do so, there will emerge a "public space" where personal reality can be at last affirmed" (p. 35).
Imagine if teachers were unified in such a way as to challenge the technocratic view of teaching and bring about a curricular renaissance within education. If that unification extended to challenging the testing apparatus thrust upon them.
. . .
Or something along those lines anyway - truthfully as I reread the piece I kept thinking about the Regressive turn of Currere, and how important it is to know our foundational background knowledge before we try to understand our students - if we are unaware of our own self, how can we teach the individual self of each student in a classroom? We often bring so many gaps in our knowledge that we are not aware of without some sort of reflection - a consideration of where we came from, how we experienced school and how we may need to rethink. Our past can create gaps in what and how we teach - this blog entry is a case in point for that idea - a missed opportunity really - one I noticed while looking back on my teaching while I read Slaughterhouse Five. Re-reading this article for my course this past week, I found myself asking more questions than finding answers of my own practice in the past, blending this with Slaughterhouse Five and wondering: Why didn't I pay more attention to Dresden?
Dresden was never been an event I have paid enough attention too - and therefore I never really spent time investigating it while I was a teacher - it was a footnote for me - and so my students as well.
I thought it mattered - and apparently we are still not learning enough about it or learning the right lessons. Teachers have to have a moral code - there are some lessons you just cant be in a grey area with- right? Without questioning the reality of the classroom - without reflecting with a purpose to regain and reengage a true motivation for teaching - we may not understand that the teaching is a moral endeavor (Martin) - there is no neutrality. You cannot always be "in the middle." Genocide is never. Racism is never. The Civil War was over and about slavery. The Confederate flag is a battle flag from Northern Virginia fighting for slavery and resurrected during the fight over segregation. We want students to think critically, and make their warranted assertions based on evidence, but I do not think that means you let them argue Hitler was "good" in any way shape or form or defend slavery in the slightest. Why is this so hard? There are discussions to be had, but ultimately, allowing a flawed approach where students can say anything as long as they support it with evidence - what counts as evidence? What works as a true warranted assertion versus some opinion or "fact." Here, I recall a paragraph from Dewey, from his The Need for a Philosophy of Education:
"The other especially urgent need is connected with the present unprecedented wave of nationalistic sentiment, of racial and national prejudice, or readiness to resort to force of arms. For this spirit to have arisen on such a scale the schools must have somehow failed grievously. Their best excuse is maybe that schools and educators were caught unawares. But that excuse is no longer available. We know the enemy, it is out in the open. Unless the schools of the world can unite in effort to rebuild the spirit of common understanding, of mutual sympathy and goodwill among all peoples and races, to exorcise the demon of prejudice, isolation and hatred, they themselves are likely to be submerged by the general return to barbarism, the sure outcome of present tendencies if unchecked by the forces which education alone can evoke and fortify" (101)
Teachers have a purpose larger than tests - its never been about tests, tests were imposed on schooling, tests represent schooling perhaps, not education itself. Its not about standards - education in schools has to subscribe to a larger purpose than test scores. Standards are actually not a problem or me, but standardized teaching - no thank you. Helping teachers reach this understand, regardless of why they enter teaching - be that as a coach or as a human seeking to change the world - is important and what should probably be at the heart of any modern Teacher Education Program.
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So. What does this have to do with Dresden? Well, I think I missed an opportunity with Dresden becuase I just didn't know about it or pay attention to it. I tended to focus on social impacts of the World Wars - less battles and more concepts - how did it impact Women, Children, African Americans for example - the impact of war back home. We engaged major events- sure - but Dresden was a city firebombed to ash - possibly with little reason - why didn't I pay attention to it and what lessons could I bring to the forefront about war, humanity and purpose?
I think I mentioned it when I discussed the question could we have bombed the Concentration Camps - if we can lay waste to a city like Dresden- why not hit some crematoria or railroad tracks? Put them out of commission - so again part of the Holocaust lesson - where my comfort zone is and not as connected as it could have been - or meaningful.
Question: Was the bombing of Dresden necessary. Asking the students this question is a better lesson that focusing extensively on names and battles - it forces a critical analysis that can be continued wit the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The NCSS C3 framework is a good fit here - following the inquiry design model students are encouraged to ask questions, seek evidence to base their claims on, and then take their answer public. Turn the students loose on the question - what do we need to know to answer it? What sub questions have to be asked and then what evidence do we need to find in the digital archive repositories? Reports for Churchill and the RAF - maps, strategic analysis of city plans, demographics - was the city significant to the war effort? Why now? What targets?
A teacher could pose it as a micro simulation - Churchill needs to know - should we bomb Dresden? Provide the context and then let the students inform you of their thoughts. I mean - with 135, 000 casualties - cremated is the word used to explain so many deaths. Up in tinders. So it goes. Vonnegut discusses it - the horror. He was there.
But I didn't know enough about it. So I never did. Maybe if I had read Slaughterhouse Five before now . . . or if I had stumbled across some old lesson or project that had been done before I could modify - there are some good ideas in some dusty old boxes just waiting for a digital 21st century update. You never know what you will find if you dive deep enough into the content - all the opportunities for learning that emerge from the questions.
I found a few old binders in a closet once at my first job teaching high school in Cincinnati. I was teaching American history, and I was just poking around the old social studies resources in the old library and I found these two binders of - well they were called games. The Critical Decisions of JFK and The Critical Decisions of Harry S. Truman. The binders provide a scenario - here is the situation - what should the president do? Then, students are given 4 choices to make (its multiple choice) - and are asked What would you do? The "right" answers - or the choices the presidents made - are in the back with a crossword and word search (Facepalm) as well as a quiz.
When I found it, I took just the scenarios and presented them to the students to think about without the options presented. Depending on the student and how much scaffolding was needed- or sometimes I give them fewer options. The point is more important than the content - making a decision based on critical understanding of the context - not memorizing information never to be used again. If you know the context, you can make decisions and when students made a BETTER choice than what was made in history - we can have a discussion about that. Whats my behavioral objective? I do not have one. Experiential and Problem Solving are more useful in social studies. Have some imagination, people.
A discussion that allows the students to showcase their developing citizenship and grasp of Americas place in the world. You just cannot beat that. No lecture comes close. Sometimes what you need is sitting somewhere right in front of you.
The boots fit perfectly. Billy Pilgrim was Cinderella, and Cinderella was Billy Pilgrim (195)
So - it seems someone else is doing something similar BUT MUCH BETTER than I am - or just different. Give this article a read - its great and now I want to write about it too.
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